


SDCC Hookup - Masquerade

by fresne



Series: SDCC Hookup [4]
Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: M/M, SDCC, SDCC2013, San Diego Comic-Con
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-17
Updated: 2013-07-22
Packaged: 2017-12-20 12:52:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/887490
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fresne/pseuds/fresne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cosplay is totes valid as a lifechoice.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Wednesday - Masquerade

**Author's Note:**

> This series is a set of interconnected stories for various fandom's mainly to hook up various pairings at San Diego Comic Con (SDCC). Each story will follow one pairing within the overall series. There turned out to be a overlapping storyline, but shouldn't need to read all the stories to get the fairly simplistic plot.
> 
> This is possibly the closest thing to a WIP that I've ever posted. And while SDCC is over, and I've finished (three days after the fact) the stories, it's still the rawest, post as I went, story I've ever done with fairly minimal editing. 
> 
> I'll (hopefully) be looping back to deal with that soon. In the meantime, take the rawness as being to a degree how SDCC feels like. A mad rush.
> 
> Largely if a fandom is modern day, generally speaking characters can show up. Largely, becayse I reserved the right to arbitrarily keep a few fandoms to be fandoms characters could talk about/visit panels for.
> 
>  
> 
> And just so you know, in this universe both Wormhole X-Treme and Firefly ran for 10 years. What, it's my universe.
> 
>  
> 
> AU of Atlantis, the series never happened. SG1 did happen. McKay spent a cold year in Siberia. John Sheppard spends his time in black ops, between heading to Con for a little Cosplay. 
> 
> May the Hookup begin.

Wednesday

"What!" Rodney clicked the metal not actually perpetual kinetic motion balls on his desk together and glared in the direction of Vancouver, which since he was in a military facility in New Mexico that to all intents and purposes did not exist was not entirely easy, but he was a genius so he managed it just fine.

Jeannie repeated the same gibberish that she'd said before. "Mere, I said I can't go. I'm sorry, but Madison broke her leg."

He adjusted the stance on his desk Borg next to the Dalek. "Why would that stop you from going? It's the Masquerade at San Diego Comic Con."

"Mere, I know it's our thing, but it's my daughter's leg." Jeannie sighed, as if he was the one being ridiculous.

"That's moronic. Not going isn't going to magically heal her leg is it." He really should have called her back on one of the video monitors. Then she could see him pointing out her ridiculousness. "Well, is it. There hasn't been amazing advances in leg healing technology have there? Anyway, it's your own fault for letting her get into gymnastics. What kind of geek parent are you?"

"Mere, I'm going to hang up now."

"No, no, no," but it was too late. His traitorous sister had already hung up. He stared at the phone with all the incredulity that a human body could hold, which given that he had incredibly high incredulity stats was very high. 

"Incredible," he told his Unmotivational Darth Vader poster. "Just incredible." They'd been working on their costume for months. That was what he was upset about, the work that would be lost. Dragon Con might have more Cosplay, but SDCC was their Con. 

When they'd visited in 85, after the hell of being forced to sit on a beach and swim in the ocean, he'd managed to convince their parents to let them spend some time indoors at a comic book convention. Jeannie had talked for months about the Disney Princesses in the Masquerade. While he had seen a vision of the future in which he could be himself, but infinitely better. A taller self with lasers and a mechanical body. The mechanics in his Macross had been primitive by the standards of what he could build today, and Jeannie's Min Mei had been adequate. It had been a start.

Cosplay was the reason they'd started talking again after she'd dropped out of school like a moron.

He reminded himself that this was not as big a catastrophe as the year he'd missed because he'd been in Siberia where the head of the base had denied his vacation request and had had the nerve to question whether Rodney wasn't a little old to play dress up despite the fact that Rodney had multiple articles explaining how Cosplay was a perfectly valid lifestyle and great for stress reduction.

He took a deep breathe. Just because his sister had betrayed him did not mean that he would not be able to enter this year. His entry was perfect and built almost entirely with Earth technology and not incorporating very much Ancient tech at all.

He could still go. He would still go.

But he needed someone to operate the mech with him. He fired off an email to the SDCC Cosplay listserv. Something brief. "Dr. Rodney McKay, PhD, PhD seeks additional Cosplay participant to operate a Mech. A minimum of a Masters in an actual science recommended." It pained him to only say Mech, because the truth was much, much cooler than that. But he didn't want anyone knowing that he was bringing a Jaeger until the last possible moment. There was nothing quite like that rush of admiration as the people in his field recognized him for the genius that he was.

He waited for the rush of responses.

He waited a minute. 

There was no response.

He waited another minute. 

There was still no response. Someone asked if anyone could recommend a sewing machine to sew leather with.

He waited a minute. There was no response.

Although, someone yammered on about their Husqvarna, which Rodney had never actually found to be that reliable a model based on the number of times he'd had to fix Jeannie's.

Cosplay was not always relaxing.

He went to double check his U-Hall. 

He checked for responses. 

Time to leave. He took a deep breathe and got on the road.


	2. Friday - Alpha Bravo Tango

Rodney was panicking, which was a completely valid response to the current situation, because he'd been certain that this was the year that he and Jeannie would finally win Best in Show, which they were robbed of every year because the judges preferred cheap theatricality to genuine craftsmanship, and yes he had won Best Workmanship, but Alpha Bravo had a real shot at winning, because if he was going to build a Jaeger, he was going to build a new Jaeger with the saw blades from Crimson Typhoon and the sword from Gipsy Danger.

However, no one had responded to his email. 

He'd checked when he'd stopped in Tucson and there was a long thread discussing the merits of different sewing machines to sew leather, but not a single response to his email. When he'd stopped at a cafe, which had promised WIFI on their sign, but the WIFI was a lie maliciously created to pull innocent travelers off the highway when actually all they had was a broken router, which he could have fixed, but he was not going to. He plugged in his MIFI, of course, but that was not the point, and fired off a perhaps poorly worded email indicating that he would very much appreciate a response to his query. 

Jeannie called him on his way to Yuma, and he regretted that his extremely important job, which only involved saving the world on a regular basis, required him to be accessible even in locations that had literally no cell service for hundreds of miles, because the world could be destroyed if he broke down in the middle of the desert and he died of dehydration.

"Mere, I don't think I should have to tell my older brother that you're not going to get anyone to play with you if you call them morons."

At least the argument occupied his time all the way to Yuma.

There were some responses to his email by the time he pulled into his Comic Con dedicated timeshare. Not positive ones. 

He did some panic shopping. He bought Jeannie a malicious Darth Maul action figure, because it was a Comic Con exclusive and she'd know why he'd gotten it for her, and it was incredibly difficult to get and he had to stand in line for two hours and it wasn't as if he had anything better to be doing like making sure that Alpha Bravo wasn't having any issues, and he wasn't going to have a partner and all those months of work were going to be completely wasted, because by next year everyone was going to have built Gipsy Danger, but they'd probably be operated by some completely adorable tween, who made the judges cry, while McKay was once again denied the award that was rightfully his. It would be like his Nobel all over again.

He almost didn't go to the Masquerade 101 panel, but if he did that would just lead to more bing buying in the Dealer's Room and he didn't need to buy a lightsaber when he had three lightsabers that he had built himself and that could actually cut steel, which had led to a slight misunderstanding with the weapon's check last year, so it was for the best that he'd left them at home.

The Den Mother said, "Oh, hi Dr. McKay. So, you came." She smiled brightly. 

He knew she hated him. Just because he made her do her job and no, duct tape was not an adequate replacement for a blowtorch and, "Were you able to find the extra for your Mech entry?"

"No, as I am sure you aware, there have been responses to my perfectly reasonable email on the listserve, and if you,"

"Great," said the Den Mother, whose name he ought to remember, but if she was going to cut him off like that then, "Well, not great obviously, but I think I might have found someone." She held her hands out as if that was going to do anything useful. "Shep's entire team crashed and burned on making their outfits," she lowered her voice, "so I figured since he's without a group and you need a body, match made in heaven."

Rodney was struck so completely dumb at the sheer inanity of her suggestion that all he could do was open and close his mouth and make a sort of strange hissing noise. 

"John Sheppard." She waved at a guy in a black t-shirt and black jeans and what kind of Cosplayer dressed like that? "Dr. Rodney McKay." Sheppard slouched forward as if Rodney's life wasn't coming apart like poorly glued seams on a costume constructed out of cardboard.

"Hey, Rodney." Sheppard had a sort of crooked smile that probably made him the Kirk of the bars around Comic-Con with his stupid spikey attractive hair and ludicrous hazel eyes and, "Oh, hey you're the guy who always shows up with the mechanized costumes that Security makes you handicap, because they have real weapons."

"That is a complete misrepresentation of the facts of the case." Rodney prepared to launch into one of his favorite rants.

"No, s'cool." Shepphard shrugged. "So, does Mech have elbow canons?"

"Of course, it has elbow rockets, not that they'd let me arm them." He glared at the rapidly receding back of the Den Mother. 

"Ok." Sheppard put his hands in his stupidly tight pants. He rocked on his black cowboy boots, which was just, this wasn't a rodeo, this was a popular culture convention, "Want to try it out during the Metallica concert. I hear Nerd HQ will have fireworks."

Rodney desperately wanted to try the elbow rockets. He'd done some field testing of course, but, he very much wanted to blow things up, which would be completely irresponsible in a city the size of San Diego, but if it were night time and there were fireworks, it might be a great idea.

Rodney really wanted to blow things up.

Sheppard really wanted to blow things up.

Rodney took Sheppard out to see the Alpha Bravo, Rodney handed Sheppard a tablet with the complete instructions on the how to operate it. Sheppard stroked the Jaeger's right arm in a way that made Rodney really uncomfortable. "We're not calling our girl Alpha Bravo." He grinned in a way that sent panic attacks straight through Rodney. "She's more of a Gipsy Typhoon."

"That's a terrible name." Rodney jutted his chin, prepared to do battle for the name of his Jaeger. "I built it. I get to name it."

"Relax, Rodney." Sheppard slung his arm over Rodney's shoulders, which did not make him relax. "I've got this."

As Rodney's synapses were too busy focusing on Sheppard's arm over his shoulder, to do more than say, "Er," that was how they ended up by the Hornet, both of them in the cockpit of the Alpha Bravo.

After they worked out walking and moving, they advanced to blowing up chopping down an ugly palm tree with the sword and another ugly palm tree with the buzz saws. They exploded water with the elbow rockets in huge sprays.

It was amazing.

Jeannie never wanted to blow up anything. 

Jeannie was his sister.

Sheppard wanted to blow up everything. 

Sheppard was not his sister. He was not in any way Rodney's relative. He kept drawling Rodney's name as if it had an extra syllable before he blew things up.

Rodney reminded himself that he was operating very complicated machinery and he needed to think with his big brain, but it was not easy.

It was then that Sheppard turned to him and said, "All that's left is to try the pulse cannon," with his crooked grin as he operated the controls.

Now as it happened, Rodney not had an opportunity to test that particular item just yet and he may have used perhaps one or two Ancient interfaces, purely in order to be done in time for SDCC. 

They may have vaporized a ton or so of water. 

Rodney did not work in the field. He did not work in the field for a reason. "That was..."

He waited for the police to show up. He waited for the authorities to notice, but apparently they were too busy with the bachalian geekfest currently going on a few blocks away to notice.

"That was cool." Sheppard unsnapped the clips that held him in place. "You built all of this?"

"Yes, well, I am a genius and I have two PhDs in gaaah." His sentence ended like that because while Rodney was talking, Sheppard had unbuckled himself from the rig, unzipped Rodney's pants all the while looking at Rodney with a curiously intent look. There really should not have been room inside the Gipsy Typhoon for Sheppard to sink to his knees in front of Rodney, but he was apparently very flexible and hot and his mouth was very hot around Rodney's cock, and Sheppard was humming and sucking and they were in a small metal cockpit and cock and mouth and there were dead fish everywhere and Rodney's fingers were trying to figure out just where they should go because there was an incredibly hot mouth on his cock and Sheppard pulled off long enough to say, "Relax Rodney, I've got you," and then he did this thing with his tongue and every drop of Rodney's blood went into his cock and he could not think and he was about to faint from the sensation and his brain went static and bliss.

Sheppard pulled off of him, wiping his lips.

Rodney attempted to regain the power of speech. He simultaneously had the thought, "I just has sex in a cockpit." He cleared his throat. "Do we, do we need to talk about this?"

Shephard shrugged. "We boiled some water. I blew you. What's to talk about?"

"It was more vaporization." Rodney felt compelled to say.

Shephard slithered because he was a succubus who liked blowing things up, back into his seat. "So, we blow up a mountain, and we'll fuck."

Rodney whimpered.

"Now Rodney, we need to figure out how to do a variation on that for the Masquerade that's more of a light show and less killing the audience, and I think we could win this." 

Rodney tried to drum up a sense of indignation, but he was feeling a bit boneless. "I can't make alterations on Gipsy Typhoon by tomorrow."

Sheppard wiped something from the side of his mouth. "You'll think of something."

This was how Rodney stayed up all night working on Gipsy Typhoon with frequent interruptions from the Sheppard asking him if was done yet.


End file.
